For the first time in my life I experienced the pangs of jealousy and
yet I was jealous of something tangible. It was lurking in my thought,
and all sorts of suspicions and fears came into my hot head.
When Reggie came that evening I did not open the door as usual. I heard
him say eagerly, when the children let him in:
“Where’s Marion?”
I was peeping over the banister, and I deliberately went back into the
bedroom and counted five hundred before I went down to see him.
He was walking excitedly up and down and as I came in he sprang to meet
me, his arms outstretched; but I drew back coldly. Oh, how bitter I
felt, and vindictive, too!
“How do you do, Mr. Bertie,” I said.
“Mr. Bertie! Marion, what does this mean?”
He stared at me incredulously, and then I saw a look of amazement and
suspicion come into his face, which had grown suddenly red as with rage.
“Good God!” he cried. “Do you mean you don’t care for me any more? Then
you must be in love with someone else.”
“Reggie,” I sneered, “don’t try to cover up your own falseness by
accusing me. You pretend to love me, and yet after all these months when
you get back, you do not come to _me_, but go to see other women (I was
guessing) and men.”
I ended with a sob of rage, for I could see in Reggie’s face that my
surmises were correct. He, however, exclaimed:
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” And before I could move, he had seized me
impulsively in his arms and was kissing me again and again. I never
_could_ resist Reggie once he got his arms about me. I always became
just as weak as a kitten and I think I would have believed anything he
told me then. I just melted to him, as it were. He knew it well, the
power of his strong arms about me, and whenever he wanted his way about
anything with me he would pick me right up and hold me till I gave in.
After a moment, with me still in his arms, he said:
“It’s true I was with men and women, but that was not my fault. There’s
such a thing as duty. I had no pleasure in their society. I was longing
for you all the time, but I had to stay with them because they are
influential people, and I want to use them to help me--us, Marion.”
“Who were those women?” I demanded.
“Only some friends of my family’s. They had a box at the theatre, and
there was young Eaton, of course, and his sister and a cousin. They
bored me to death, give you my word they did, darling. Come, come now,
be good to your tired old Reggie.”
I was glad to make up with him and, oh! infinitely happy to have him
back. The great oceans of water that had been between us seemed to have
melted away. Nevertheless, he had planted a feeling in me that I could
not entirely rid myself of, a feeling of distrust. Like a weed, it was
to grow in my heart to terrible proportions.